


the planets bend between us

by steelrunner



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Pre-Canon, Relationship Development
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 05:58:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11983626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelrunner/pseuds/steelrunner
Summary: She saysyes. She saysyes, and it's as though a whole new paradigm has opened up; the weight of the world, shifted.





	the planets bend between us

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Snow Patrol song of [the same name](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmpehYvQxk0).

The first time he had seen Daibazaal from space, he had lost his voice. Space travel was something reserved for the orbital fleet, those wealthier members of the merchant class, and occasionally the imperial family, when a diplomatic event was important enough to require their presence. Then, he had just been a prince; thirteenth in his line of the House Syncline, barely past his majority and fit mainly for dueling, politicking, and the most rigid of court ceremonies.

“Small, isn’t it?” One of the lieutenants - Zarkon had been introduced to him at the start of the party, hours ago - remarked to him, gesturing to the viewing-panel with his glass of liquor. The few markings of ranks on his armor were polished to a high sheen. “Like it could fit in the palm of your hand.”

Zarkon looked back out the window; he could just pick out the dark stretch of land that was his House’s lands, spotted with pale glows that marked not cities but old bombing-sites, still contaminated. Clouds streaked over glassy green seas that hid their gravitational currents under the surface, racing over the few defiant lights on the jagged edges of the world before vanishing into the void. It looked steadfast, like the last rampart in a crumbling red ruin.

He takes a drink from his own glass, to be polite. “From this perspective, certainly.”

===

The woman - Master Alchemist Honerva - has eyes that gleam like small chips of gold. Perhaps they’re unique to her sub-group, as none of Alfor’s other attendants or compatriots had them, much like the soft, subtle gray of her hair. She had taken command of the project swiftly and with great cheer, reserving her greatest enthusiasm not for conversation with her king but for directing the numerous assistants scurrying through the lab, that odd pet still curled around her shoulders.

She’s still there when he takes a last detour on his way back to the palace, late past the reasoning of most people who don’t run a planet.

Zarkon pauses as the door to the main lab slides open; his bodyguards remain a few steps behind, manning the entrance. Honerva sits at a bank of consoles opposite to the door, her back turned to him. The pet is gone, and she seems unaware of his presence, completely focused.

Just when he determines to clear his throat, Honerva sighs abruptly, slouching back in her chair in a way that’s both petulant and discouraged. She sighs again, and in a quick, practiced motion, tugs the fastening from her bun so that it tumbles down her back in a loose tail. The cool blue light of the screens creates a radiance around her, blurring her outline as she sits up, shaking out her hair and leaning back over her work.

It’s unusually terrifying to head back down the hallway while trying not to make a sound. For all Zarkon’s worries, him and his cadre make it out of the enclosure without any disturbances. If Honerva ever realized that he was there, she doesn’t mention it the next day, or any other.

===

“The feast is still going to be held in the lesser hall of the east wing, correct?”

“Yes. Unfortunately the windows in the greater hall are still having their force shielding rebuffed,” Alvreid says with a faint sigh, adding a few notations to the data pad in her hands. She has been social director to the throne since long before he was sired, back to the early reign of Zarkon’s predecessor. If she isn’t the official matchmaker to the throne, she is a filter for the amateur ones trying to maneuver various noble youths close enough to him to make a proposal, weeding out candidates with ruthless discretion. “The seating arrangements, for your approval?”

Zarkon takes the pad she hands him, looking down at the spread of table settings, names written alongside each seat in crabbed handwriting. It’s well-arranged to keep the hangers-on at a distance and any feuding Houses well separate; he almost hesitates before saying, “Yes, but have the Yurakor guests on the right side rearranged - I want the Altean delegate seated at my table.” The delegate being the highest ranked citizen in residence, and with Ambassador Pinna withdrawn due to illness, the duty falls to Honerva, being of royal appointment to the Quintessence Project.

Instead of making a note, Alvreid just stares. The aged yellow of her eyes is nearly enough to make him squirm, but Zarkon doesn’t back down.

“You _would_ go decaphoebs without a single indiscretion, and then throw your backing behind someone entirely respectable and utterly unsuited,” she finally says, in a disgustedly resigned tone that would be treasonous if she didn’t traffic in royal secrets for a living. “Very well; but you’ll be the one who has to listen to every backwater prince bleating about the purity of the royal line.”

The feast goes excellently. Honerva looks splendid in the formal uniform of the Altean Scientific Corps, and spends much of the meal in lively conversation with himself and her neighbor, one of the fleet generals just returned from orbital service. If anything is said of it, well - Zarkon is not in earshot to catch it.

===

“Children,” is Honerva’s next question. “Do you want them?”

Zarkon blinks, taken by surprise. He leans down to examine a row of thistle-thorns, grown red and fat in their trays: Honerva’s current experiment involves the usage of quintessence-fueled soil as fertilizer. “Yes,” he says. “It’s generally considered an imperial duty to have a few, should a line of succession ever need to be established.”

Honerva gives him a look of playful frustration. “I mean, do you want them beyond the throne?”

“Certainly,” Zarkon says, without hesitation. As Honerva picks up one of the samples, holding it high to examine its roots, he asks, “And you?”

“Ah, well.” Honerva tilts her head in indecision. “I always figured I might have one of my own in few years, once I reached a secure point in my career. Just the one - any more and I’d be totally lost, I think.”

Some assumption in Zarkon’s mind crumbled and collapsed, leaving him momentarily scrambling for a reply. No - such a detail couldn’t have slipped past him, not for this long. “You, ah, have a partner back on Altea?”

“No,” Honerva says, darting a look at him that's just this side of amused. “Though it's more... straightforward to do it the usual way, it's easy enough to conceive without a partner thanks to gravidity treatments. With artificial replicators, you don’t even have to be involved on the physical level.”

“I see,” Zarkon says. He tries not to sound too relieved. He thinks he’s successful. “That sounds like a fascinating process: would you tell me more about it?”

===

She says _yes_. She says _yes_ , and it's as though a whole new paradigm has opened up; the weight of the world, shifted, like how he had felt stepping down from the dais after his coronation. Another dimension full of new possibilities. 

It takes three decaphoebs to plan the wedding: half of that is due to the delicate social engineering required of any imperial wedding, and the rest a consequence of the fact that Zarkon is marrying someone neither Galra nor noble nor ready to give up their life to the tide of duty. And at the end of it all, she stands with him in front of a crowd of thousands, millions more watching, hands clasped.

He says _yes_ , and she smiles up at him with a star's brilliance.

===

After Alfor leaves - after Zarkon has convinced him to leave - he finds Honerva fixed at her usual station in the lab, eyes flicking over multiple videos and reports scattered across the holographic screen. Several teams have already been deployed to investigate the area the beast had laid waste, clean-up crews close behind. She hasn’t slept since the first disturbance, now nearly two cycles ago, and it shows: her hollowed eyes only emphasized by the red streaks accenting their corners, face drawn and hair a mess.

“My love,” Zarkon says. Honerva looks up as he moves to stand beside her. He almost doesn't know what to say. In the past few days he has seen a monster pull itself out of the core of the world, known his planet was on the verge of destruction, and piloted a ship that flew faster than thought, one that sang in his mind with each soaring movement. "Are you certain?"

Before she can speak, he continues, “I don’t mean to end the project. But things can be put into stasis; to hold off further incidents while we take time to rebuild and recover. Are you certain that this is the imperative moment?”

Honerva is quiet. She looks back to the screen, eyes reflecting blue, before saying, “Do we know for sure that it's dead?"

"It must be. Alfor said that the only things left were scraps of atoms - "

“And if it were to rebuild itself from those scraps? Or another one to emerge, following after it?”

Zarkon doesn't have to answer. He can well imagine the effect of another battle like this one, an endless cycle tearing the land apart.

"It is too dangerous _not_ to be studied.” Honerva jerks to her feet, laying both palms flat against the console as if for emphasis. “We have to have control over it. To command it.”

She turns to face him, gold eyes shining like coals against her dusky skin. There are the faintest streaks of white in her hair, he realizes, turned silver in the low light: from what? For how long? Then, abruptly, she strides forward, and throws her arms around his waist, clinging onto him fiercely.

“I will not let it escape our grasp," she says - a vow and a threat all at once, declared to a universe far bigger than the two of them. "I’ll find the answer, no matter what it takes.”

Zarkon cautiously settles his arms around his wife, holding her close. There is a strange, coaxing feeling in his chest that recalls a red planet hanging in the void; to see something wild and dangerous and wish to close one's hands around it - to protect it.

“Yes,” Zarkon murmurs into her hair, turning his cheek to let her tuck her head into his shoulder. “You will.”

**Author's Note:**

> All kudos and comments are appreciated!


End file.
